Data Shows How the Pandemic Changed What Time People Dine Out

I've you've noticed your favorite restaurants closing down earlier in the evening or bars calling last call way before midnight, it's not just your imagination. Early bird dining used to be strictly relegated to the elderly, but more and more younger people are opting to start and end their evenings on the early side and be in bed at a decent hour.

According to the Wall Street Journal, citing data from Yelp, restaurants are now seating 10 percent of diners between 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. That's up from five percent from the same three-hour window in 2019. Uber rides to restaurants from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. have likewise increased nearly 10 percent since 2019, while rides after 8 p.m. are now down nine percent.

Chris Chernock, the beverage director at Asterid, an upscale eatery in Los Angeles, told the publication that when the restaurant opened in March 2022, it closed around 11 p.m. Now, less than a year and a half later, the last seating tends to be at 8 p.m.

"I’m a night owl, so shutting down the restaurant at 9 p.m. feels so weird to me," Chernock explained. "But if there’s two or three tables in the restaurant and a lot of us are just standing around, we lose money. He added that he's also now having a more difficult time finding places that are still open to eat once he gets done work.

The shift, like many aspects of our lives that were upended in 2020, is due to ripple effects of the pandemic. An increasingly remote workforce is now more eager to get out of the house as soon as the workday is over, whether that means grabbing drinks or going out to dinner.

But the trend is not exclusive to dining. Movie theaters, live entertainment, music venues, and more and now bumping up showtimes. Whereas it once was unheard of for a Broadway show to start before 8 p.m. on a Friday, now 7 p.m. is becoming the norm.

"Traditionally people would say that’s a bad idea. Don’t do a show that early, because people won’t have time to get into the city from the suburbs," said Alexander Donnelly, who runs the theater division of production company. "Now, we’re seeing this desire to get home earlier and get out of the city as quickly as possible."

But while this may be bad news for night owls, for many, this trend is part of a long overdue reckoning. Just recently, Jamie Lee Curtis kvetched about the late starting time for concerts and other live music events.

"Why are there no matinees? I’m curious," Curtis joked on Today back in March. "I would love to go see Coldplay. I would love it. The problem is, I’m not going to see Coldplay if they start their show at 9 and there’s an opening act. I want to hear Coldplay at 1 p.m."

If the trend continues, perhaps a 1 p.m. Coldplay matinee won't be too far out of the realm of possibility.